Al-Aqsa imam arrested by Israeli occupation forces after Friday prayers; 6 Jerusalemites arrested in Silwan
samidoun – Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | April 8, 2016
Israeli occupation forces arrested imam Sheikh Mohammed Salim as he left the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on Friday, 8 April, accusing him of “incitement” in his speech delivered today at Friday prayers before 70,000 worshipers.
Feras al-Dabas, press spokesperson of the Islamic Waqf, was quoted in Al-Resalah as saying that despite the intervention of the director of the Waqf, Sheik Azzam al-Khatib, the occupation forces insisted on arresting Salim and had taken him to a detention center, without revealing his whereabouts.
This came as occupation forces arrested six Palestinian Jerusalemites from Silwan, confiscating a protest tent, in an attempt to stop a public Friday prayer in protest of ongoing Israeli occupation policies of repression against the people of Silwan, in particular a decision to demolish 50 homes in Silwan under the pretext of the construction of a garden. Occupation forces arrested Jalal Abbasi, Firas Abbasi, Musa Abbasi, Mohammed Abu Tayeh and Khaled Abu Tayeh and detained two vehicles, which were warned against delivering any plastic chairs to the protest tent.
Jawad Siyam, Director of the Wadi Hilweh Information Center was briefly arrested after attempting to stop the arrest of the five Palestinian youths, and later released. Despite the arrests and the confiscation of the protest tent, the public prayer in rejection of arrests, home demolitions and land confiscation went forward.
Egyptian satellite provider Nilesat stops services to Lebanese Al-Manar
Press TV – April 6, 2016
Egyptian satellite provider Nilesat has stopped airing Lebanese news channel Al-Manar following similar moves targeting Lebanon by Saudi Arabia and its allies.
Taking the measure on Tuesday, Nilesat alleged that Al-Manar had “violated the contract by broadcasting shows that provoke sectarian strife and sedition.”
The company is also to stop its operations in Lebanon as of Wednesday when its contract expires.
Saudi-based satellite provider Arabsat had stopped broadcasting Al-Manar in December 2015, a month after it took Al Mayadeen TV, another Lebanon-based channel, off air.
Late last week, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV shut its offices in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and dismissed the local staff over “security reasons.”
Saudi Arabia has been adopting a raft of measures against Lebanon in reaction to the latter country’s refusal to side with Riyadh against Iran.
It has been targeting Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, which has been fighting Saudi-backed extremism inside both Lebanon and Syria.
Earlier in the year, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil refused to back a motion crafted by Saudi Arabia against the Islamic Republic, prompting Riyadh to retract a $4-billion aid pledge to Lebanon and demand an apology, which Lebanon refused to give.
The motion had sought to condemn Tehran over January attacks on vacant Saudi diplomatic premises. The attacks occurred during otherwise peaceful protests against Saudi Arabia’s execution earlier of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
Saudi Arabia has also ordered its citizens not to travel to Lebanon and imposed sanctions on four Lebanese firms and three individuals it accuses of having links to Hezbollah.
There are also reports that Saudi Arabia may expel the Lebanese nationals working on its territory.
Some local media reports in Lebanon have, meanwhile, said the Saudis may be applying pressure to secure the release of a member of the royal family held in Lebanon since last October on drug charges.
Abdul-Mohsen al-Waleed Al Saud was detained in Beirut after authorities seized two tons of amphetamine Captagon pills before they were loaded onto his private plane.
University rooms destroyed in early morning raid by Israeli forces
International Solidarity Movement | March 5, 2016
East Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine – In the early hours of Tuesday, 5th April, around 3am, an armed group of Israeli soldiers stormed the campus of Al Quds university in the area of Abu Dis, part of East Jerusalem. The soldiers terrorised security guards on duty and forcefully entered four rooms belonging to student political parties and confiscated equipment while completely destroying the rest of the rooms.
Destroyed items from the Tuesday morning raid gathered outside the rooms
During the early hours of the morning the only people present at the university campus were the campus security, they were rounded up and locked together in a room, they were given no reason from the soldiers as to why they were being locked in a room nor as to why the soldiers were entering the campus grounds. The soldiers proceeded to forcefully enter four rooms belonging to various political parties run by students of the university, cutting the locks and smashing their way in, completely destroying the doors. This is the fourth time in 2016 alone that soldiers have entered the campus, destroying and confiscating material while giving no reason for their actions.
One of the computers amongst other items destroyed in the raid
The rooms entered belong to varying student bodies who’s students work within the university and the local community. Among the varied groups they advocate student rights, create activities within the campus and surrounding neighbourhoods, hold discussions on the state of the middle east, volunteer within the community, offer services for students, hold workshops and meetings about young prisoners and host an array of solidarity activities for the Palestinian community.
Students cleaning up debris from Tuesday’s raid
During the raid the army took personal computers, laptops and cameras belonging to the Islamic party. Around one hundred and seventy flags were confiscated from the union party room and all of their stationary equipment for creative activities. Whatever was not taken was destroyed during the raid by the occupying forces.
The activities room for the ladies Islamic movement which works mainly with disadvantaged youths and students had the majority of their belongings destroyed, posters ripped from walls and electronic equipment confiscated.
The area of Abu Dis were the university is located was around thirty thousand hectares prior to 2002 and is now around four thousand hectares with 75% of the area now falling under area C and 25% under area B. This malicious land grab by the Israeli government has left students facing huge difficulties with their education. Many students within the faculty of medicine can’t reach Jerusalem where the main hospital for training is located and have been forced to go elsewhere for their practical while the media faculty faces new difficulties also. Since the beginning of what most would call the third intifada, checkpoints leading into the city of Ramallah, where the media students must go to complete their practical work have become extremely tightened and students are often denied access to the area or face long waits to enter.
The annexation wall surrounding the university
On the 2nd November, 2015, Israeli forces entered the campus around 4pm and began firing on students using tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and even using live ammunition. Over two hundred students were injured and required medical care while two students were seriously injured, with access to Jerusalem hospital unavailable the students were forced to travel over an hour to the city of Ramallah for treatment.
One of the destroyed rooms
With the student elections to take place on April 19th, this attack falls into Israel’s wider policy of targeting political activity within student campuses and bodies as a means of repressing resistance to the occupation.
Four students of the university have been killed by Israeli forces since November, 2015.
Turkish President Calls to Strip ‘Terrorism Supporters’ of Citizenship
Sputnik — 05.04.2016
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday called for a debate on whether those who Ankara deems “terrorist supporters” should be stripped of Turkish citizenship, local media reported.
“We should consider all measures against supporters of terrorism, including stripping them of their citizenship,” Erdogan said, as quoted by the Daily Sabah newspaper.
The Turkish government has stepped up anti-terror efforts in the wake of suicide bombings that rocked its capital Ankara earlier this year. The attacks were claimed by pro-Kurdish militants in response to Turkey’s shelling of Kurdish positions in Syria.
Erdogan also brought up the issue of removing parliamentary immunity of members of the pro-Kurdish and pro-minority Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which he said “should be taken care of immediately,” according to the outlet.
Ankara previously controversially labelled government critics as supporters of terrorism. In January, several academics were held for allegedly engaging in terrorism propaganda after they condemned the ongoing operation in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast that has killed over a hundred civilians since August.
Spain – police issue 40,000 fines in just seven months with new gag laws
By Graham Vanbergen | TruePublica | March 26, 2016
In 2012, there were nearly 15,000 demonstrations throughout Spain, amounting to around 40 per day. In 2013, there were 4,500 demonstrations in Madrid alone: an increase of 1,000 from the year before. Protest increased on a par with the continual disintegration of full employment and the implementation of severe austerity programmes accompanied with a lack of government transparency and accusations of corruption at the very highest level.
In April last year, Amnesty International (AI) was clearly getting concerned with how the authorities in Spain were dealing with peaceful public protest in Spain by saying:
“With threats of fines or threats of being beaten, the government is trying to stigmatise and criminalise people who are just practising their rights.”
Amnesty International investigated and discovered that although the vast majority of protesters were indeed peaceful, police treated the protests as riots and the people in them in the same manner as those who incited violence. In many cases, the police had used excessive force to confront protesters. AI’s report entitled Spain: Protests and the suffocating embrace of the law makes for sobering reading.
By June, Spain officially went police state with a series of “gag laws” that effectively criminalised peaceful public protest. Among the many new repressive stipulations was the implementation of €30,000-€600,000 fines for “unauthorised protests,” which can be combined for maximum effect with a €600-€300,000 fine for “disrupting public events.”
This awful set of authoritarian statutes arose from Spain’s position as a flashpoint for anti-austerity protests. The European Union did not want to see a precursor to the Occupy Wall Street movement gaining significant ground in its territorial fiefdom and has allowed breaches of internationally recognised human rights laws to be perpetrated right under its nose. Fines and mistreatment await anyone who refuses to recognise authority with the respect it’s forcibly requiring citizens to demonstrate.
The law also extended its anti-protest punishments to social media, where users can face similar fines for doing nothing more than encouraging or organizing a protest. Failing to present ID when commanded is another fine. And then there’s this:
Showing a “lack of respect” to those in uniform or failing to assist security forces in the prevention of public disturbances could result in an individual fine of between €600 and €30,000.
What could go wrong? The Spanish news outlet eldiario.es filed a request for information which revealed an alarming number of penalties and sanctions issued since the Gag Law, otherwise known as the Public Safety Act, was passed on July 1, 2015.
In the space between July 1st 2015, the date the new laws were enforced and January 28, 2016 police have grabbed the opportunity with both hands and sanctioned or fined 40,000 people for “disrespecting” law enforcement. Some of the numbers include; 6,217 for ‘disrespecting the police”, 3,700 for disobedience to authority and 2,027 for causing public disorder.
“Now the government is judge and jury on a number of violations that were previously in the hands of independent judges,” says Joaquin Bosch, spokesperson for Jueces por la Democracia (Judges for Democracy). Bosch’s critisisms continue – “Article 52 of the law states that the complaint of a police officer constitutes “sufficient evidentiary basis” to take legal action. “In the judicial field, the cop’s word is not enough, it has to be proven.”
Spain is one of the least violent countries in the world but other controversial articles of the law are extended to areas similar to that of totalitarian states. There are penalties just for refusing to provide identification, taking photos of police or other objects that could identify a member of the security forces or for obstructing authority in compliance with administrative or judicial decisions, including people who try to prevent an eviction, for example.
Amnesty International also stated that;
“The excessive use of force by Spanish police and plans to strengthen repressive legislation are a damning indictment of the Spanish government’s determination to crush peaceful protest. The police have repeatedly used batons and rubber bullets against demonstrators, injuring and maiming protestors and by-standers alike. The police act with complete impunity, while peaceful demonstrators and leaders of social movements are continually harassed, stigmatized, beaten, sometimes arrested to face criminal charges, imprisonment and fines.”
And as one peaceful protestor, Ester Quitana said after being hit in the face with a rubber bullet fired by the police – “Due to the impact of the rubber bullet, I have a deformed nasal septum, injuries in my mouth and my ear, and have lost sensation on the left side of my face. I am still under psychological treatment, my daily routine has been affected, as well as the way I am connected with people, how I am seen by them. I’ve been denied any kind of social benefits I have applied for.”
Maria, for protesting against budget cuts was ¢1,000 told AI “They want to destroy the leadership of the movements, and so are seeking out the spokespeople”.
Amnesty International also reports that those unfortunate to become detainees have been ill-treated when taken into police custody and that journalists and photographers covering demonstrations have also reported being the target of police violence. Cameras and equipment have been damaged by police to prevent the documenting of police violence.
Revenue from the sanctions since the new laws were enforced last July has now reached 18.3 million euros.
As the government itself has since recognised, demonstrators committed violence in less than one per cent of the rallies and protests.
In the meantime, the unelected bureaucrats of the European Union, of which Spain is a member state, have looked the other way as has the United Nations, both of whom promote as central to their existence the protection of human rights.
France Spies on Lebanon’s Internet
Al-Manar | April 2, 2016
Al-Akhbar newspaper revealed that France has been involved in spying on the internet cable that transmits the cyber services from the French city of Marseille to Lebanon, passing through Egypt.
The Lebanese daily explained that the French intelligence services monitor all the telecommunications operated in Lebanon, knowing that Orange company that is very close to the Zionist entity also supervises the entire process.
Accordingly, the experts urged the Lebanese to take extreme cyber security measures to secure their telecommunication activities.
Report: 647 Palestinians arrested in March; 750 now held in administrative detention
samidoun – Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | April 1, 2016
Four prisoners’ advocacy organizations in Palestine (Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Prisoners Affairs Commission and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights – Gaza) issued a report on Israeli occupation arrests and imprisonment of Palestinians in March 2016. The following is a translation of their report:
647 Palestinians were arrested in the West Bank and Gaza in March 2016, including 128 children and 16 women and girls. This raises the number of arrests since the beginning of the popular uprising in October 2015 to more than 4,767 Palestinians arrested.
The highest number of arrests was in Jerusalem area, with 149 arrests, followed by 110 in Al-Khalil, 88 in Jenin, 87 in Ramallah, 63 in Bethlehem, 62 in Nablus, 30 in Qalqilya, 24 in Tulkarem, 10 in Jericho, 10 in Tubas, 9 in Salfit and 5 from the Gaza Strip.
192 administrative detention orders were issued in March; 95 of those were new orders and 97 of them were renewals of previous administrative detention orders. There are now over 750 Palestinians held without charge or trial under administrative detention in Israeli jails.
There are 68 women and girls imprisoned in Israeli jails, 18 of whom are girls under 18, including the youngest prisoner, Dima Wawi, who is 12 years old. There are over 400 child prisoners in Israeli jails, and 700 ill prisoners.
Repression of Journalists
Over seven Palestinian journalists have been arrested since the beginning of 2016; the offices of satellite channel Palestine Today and Trans Media company were closed by occupation soldiers at dawn in Ramallah on Friday, 11 March. Their equipment was confiscated and bureau chief Farouk Elayyat and journalist Mohammed Amer and camera operator Shabib Shabib were arrested; Amer and Shabib were released after interrogation. On 13 March, journalist Ibrahim Jaradat, also with Palestine Today, was arrested at a mobile military checkpoint. After 20 days of imprisonment, Elayyat and Jaradat were released on 31 March on bail of 2,000 NIS each. Journalist Musab Kufaisheh, 24, was arrested in March as was Mohammed Zaghloul, radio presenter.
Under pressure from the Occupying Power, the French satellite, Eutelsat, removed Palestinian channel Al-Aqsa TV from its broadcast on charges of “incitement.” Palestinian journalists inside Palestine received threats stating that they are under surveillance and threats to “Israeli security.”
The Israeli occupation in November 2015 closed Radio Al-Khalil and Radio Dreams; these closures by occupation forces against media organizations and the ongoing harassment of Palestinian journalists is a continuation of the occupation policy of repressing Palestinians’ expression of their cause and the crimes of the occupation before the world. The occupation is persecuting Palestinian human rights defenders and journalists in an attempt to empty the media and human rights organizations of experienced voices and silence their work, obscure the reality of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by occupation forces against Palestinian civilians.
Administrative and military actions by the occupation forces against Palestinian journalists and human rights defenders violate international humanitarian law and serve only the purpose of attempting to intimidate Palestinian civilians and pushing them to give up their rinalienable rights. The arrest of journalist violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. The organizations call on the international community to work and take action to stop these violations.
There are currently 16 Palestinian journalists imprisoned; the longest imprisoned journalist is Mahmoud Issa, serving a life sentence, who was a reporter before his arrest in 1993.
Hunger Strikes in Israeli Prisons
During March a number of prisons engaged in open hunger strikes for various periods against administrative detention without charge or trial, and against solitary confinement, including Yazan Hanani of Beit Furik, Nablus; Daoud Habboub of Ramallah; Mahmoud Al-Fasfous; Alaa Rayyan; and Karam Amer.
Other prisoners are continuing their hunger strikes against administrative detention: Sami Janazrah, Imad Batran, Abdel-Rahim Sawayfeh and Abdul-Ghani Safadi.
Abdullah al-Mughrabi, Nahar al-Saadi, Issam Zeineddine are on hunger strike against solitary confinement, as was Zaid Bseisi. Mohammed Daoud of Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem has launched a hunger strike against his re-imprisonment after his release in the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange.
Arrest and imprisonment for Facebook posts
The Israeli government has, in recent months, formed a so called “cyber unit” in order to surveil, investigate and prosecute Palestinian social media use, in particular focusing on Facebook. Since October 2015 through mid-March, 148 Palestinians have been arrested due to Facebook posts, with many charged with “incitement;” others have been ordered to administrative detention without charge.
These arrests have focused especially on Jerusalem, and in many cases come in response to written statements of solidarity or support for Palestinian martyrs or prisoners, including publishing their photos. This attempt to suppress Palestinian expression on social media has not only been carried out through arrests and imprisonment, but also official attempts to force Palestinian youth, especially in Jerusalem and Occupied Palestine ’48, to be fired from their jobs over Facebook posts, or forcible transfer them from their homes, especially in Jerusalem.
Donya Musleh, 19, a student at Palestine National University, was arrested on 15 November 2015. Her home in Dheisheh camp was invaded by occupation soldiers and ransacked. She is a student activist, but the military court indictment against her was composed of three items, all of which related to Facebook postings, including comments on photos of wounded and killed Palestinians.
The Israeli indictment in the military courts stated that Musleh published a photo of a Palestinian demonstrator throwing stones with lines of Palestinian poetry about stones; the same indictment said that she published a photo of Moataz Zawahreh, Palestinian youth activist shot dead in Dheisheh while attending a demonstration, again with lines of poetry.
She was also accused of membership in a prohibited organization for posting photos of Palestinian martyrs who were part of the same political party, and on the basis of these postings accused of membership in the organization. The indictment also noted that she received numerous “Likes” on Facebook. The military court held that she “encouraged Palestinians to carry out operations against the security of Israel” by these facebook postings which “disturb public order.”
192 administrative detention orders in March
192 administrative detention orders were issued in March by the Israeli military, including 95 new orders, including orders against two women, six children, two members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a journalist.
Among the most prominent cases of administrative detention in March were those of Mohammed Amarneh, 17 of Jenin, and Hamza Hammad, 15 of Silwad near Ramallah, ordered imprisoned without charge or trial.
Amarneh was interrogated and denied all accusations, yet administrative detention was used to arbitrarily imprison him. On 16 March 2016 an administrative detention order against him for three months was imposed by the occupation military court, alleging that he is a danger to the security of the area. When inquired as to the specifics by Amarneh’s lawyer, references were made to his Facebook account despite the admission of the prosecution that there was no evidence of any particular Facebook post.
Hammad, 15, was ordered to administrative detention for six months. He was earlier arrested in August 2015 and interrogated for 23 days, during which he was interrogated for lengthy periods and beaten, and was released without indictment. When he was arrested, the soldier arresting him told his mother that he “should be in prison” because his father, Mo’ayyad Hammad is serving a life sentence in Israeli jails, accused of participating in the Palestinian resistance and killing soldiers.
Arrests of Palestinians from Gaza
In March 2016, five Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, including three ill patients seeking treatment, were arrested. One of these was Fadi Al-Sharif, 28, a Palestinian football player with the Al-Hilal Football Club in Gaza City, arrested at Beit Hanoun crossing; he had been issued a permit for treatment at Al-Makassed hospital in East Jerusalem. He was then arrested when attempting to return to Gaza. These arrests came as part of the continuing land and sea blockade on Gaza imposed by the occupation, and its absolute authority over borders and the waters of Gaza, depriving the population of basic human rights. The Beit Hanoun/Erez crossing is used as a trap to arrest Palestinians, especially those who are ill. Palestinians’ need to travel through the crossing is exploited, including being issued a permit to pass and then being detained when arriving at the crossing. In addition, ill people in Gaza are vulnerable to deteriorating health conditions caused by procrastination and delays by occupation forces in requests for permits.
Photo: Tal King (Archive photo)
White House to Syrians: Don’t Dare Vote For Assad!
By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | March 30, 2016
US backing for the overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was supposed to be all about democracy. As Washington tells it, the people took to the street demanding democratic reforms and Assad did not listen, so he lost his legitimacy and needed to be overthrown. The US helped facilitate that overthrow by shipping in tons of weapons (much of which ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda and ISIS).
What Syrians were supposed to get in Assad’s place was a bright new future where they could vote for whoever they pleased to lead their government. That is what Washington told us was the noble goal of its regime change operation in Syria.
But just as in other US “democratization” operations overseas, that turns out to be not the case at all.
Syrians are free to choose their leaders as long as they choose the leaders Washington has chosen for them.
Over and over again the White House has reiterated its position that the Syrian people are forbidden from choosing Assad as their president after ISIS and al-Qaeda are defeated. The latest example of Washington’s anti-democratic “democracy promotion” came today, after Assad signaled his flexibility in forming a transitional government that might include the opposition, independents, and loyalists.
Obama’s spokesman flatly rejected any such proposal, saying, “I don’t know whether (Assad) envisioned himself being a part of that national unity government. Obviously that would be a non-starter for us.”
So Syrians, your “democracy” is being given to you by a United States deeply opposed to the idea of allowing any vote that is not pre-approved by Washington’s regime-changers.
Shorter Washington to Syrian people: “OK, you can vote, but we will hand you the approved candidate list.”
Hmmm…don’t they do that in US-condemned Iran?
Colombia: ‘Armed Strike’ Forced on Residents by Paramilitaries
teleSUR – April 1, 2016
As the possibility of a peace deal is becoming more certain, a surge of paramilitary violence in the country raises concerns of lasting peace.
In what’s being called an “armed strike” the Usuga Clan, a nacro-paramilitary outfit, ordered local residents in three northern departments in Colombia to stop all their activities for two days. Flyers distributed beforehand threatened them with retaliation if they dared to leave their homes.
They also forced local shops to shut down and intimidated children not to go to school, while blocking roads and rivers, said Colombia’s Ombudsman Alfonso Cajiao.
In the department of Sucre, education centers were shut down and two people were assassinated since the beginning of the forced strike, reported a local organization.
An assassination attempt on human rights activist and ex-senator Piedad Cordoba Friday is believed to be the work of paramilitaries. The Usuga Clan also killed a policeman and a military officer Thursday. Both officers were unarmed and dressed as civilians when they were killed.
President Juan Manuel Santos strongly condemned what he called a “criminal group” in a press conference.
“I insist that the Usuga Clan is a criminal organization, and will not be granted any political treatment. I can only recommend that they hand themselves over to the country’s justice,” he added, reporting that security forces arrested 56 members belonging to the armed group Friday, who were allegedly intimidating the local population on social media and in the streets.
The armed strike comes as various far-right sectors and paramilitary groups are calling for a national mobilization Saturday to protest against the peace deal currently being negotiated between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in Havana.
On Thursday, far-right leader and ex-president Alvaro Uribe, criticized the peace deal, saying the deal was “not a peace deal, it is an impunity deal,” in an interview with the Spanish-based journal, ABC.
“The agreement could end up sending to prison all those who fought terrorism,” he dramatically warned, denying any form of state terrorism or paramilitary violence like the scandal of “false positives” carried out during his presidency.
As the agreement is gets closer, a surge of paramilitary violence has also raised concerns among progressive sectors and activists in the country who fear that the Colombian state will be unable to guarantee their security even after the peace deal is signed.
Hamas slams Twitter for closing of accounts
Press TV – April 1, 2016
Hamas has slammed Twitter for closing several accounts linked to the Palestinian resistance movement, saying the company is biased in favor of the Israeli regime.
The Hamas military wing, Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement on Friday that its English- and Arabic-language accounts had been shut down for the third time in a fortnight.
Twitter is showing a “clear bias to the Israeli occupation where it should (adopt a) neutral position toward both sides,” the statement added.
It said that the closure comes while Twitter allows Israeli officials to encourage “racism, extremism and terrorism” on the social networking site.
Qassam also urged Twitter to reopen its accounts, saying one of those closed accounts had been followed by over 140,000 followers.
Twitter declined to comment, saying in a statement that the company does not comment on individual accounts citing “privacy and security reasons.”
Since its establishment in December 1987, Hamas has refused to recognize Israel and adopted resistance against the Israeli occupation, which it believes is the sole way of bringing about the liberation of occupied Palestinian territories. The movement says its goal is to liberate the entire Palestine.
The Palestinian resistance movement scored a landslide victory in Palestinian elections in 2006. Hamas has ruled the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, while Fatah has set up headquarters in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank.
Israel has waged three large-scale aerial and ground wars on Gaza in the past seven years. In its latest act of aggression in the summer of 2014, which lasted for 50 days, the regime killed about 2,200 Palestinians and inflicted heavy damage on Gaza’s infrastructure and economy. In that latest Israeli aggression, Twitter shut down most of Hamas’ accounts.
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UK Researchers: Tax Food to Reduce Climate Change
I doubt these professors have anything to fear from a food tax
By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | November 19, 2016
A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change. […]
This proposal, from a group of people who have probably never missed a meal in their lives, is totally obscene. High income countries often have a lot of poor people who would be hard hit by increases in the price of food.
Needlessly exacerbating the risk poor people don’t get enough to eat, especially children and pregnant mothers, who are especially vulnerable to adverse health impacts from lack of protein in their diet – if this ghastly proposal is ever implemented, future generations will look upon it as a crime against humanity. – Read full article
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